Special counsel Robert Mueller will present evidence that a bank executive allegedly helped former Trump campaign head Paul Manafort obtain more than $6 million in loans while that executive tried to land a position in the Trump campaign.
Prosecutors for Mueller revealed the plans in a filing Friday for Manafort’s trial on fraud charges in Virginia that will begin later this month. According to the filings, a senior executive at “Lender D” — an unnamed bank — approved Manafort’s loan applications.
The executive “sought the defendant’s assistance to obtain a position advising the Trump campaign (which he obtained) and later in the administration of President Trump (which he did not obtain),” the filing reads.
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“The government intends to present evidence that although various Lender D employees identified serious issues with the defendant’s loan application, the senior executive at Lender D interceded in the process and approved the loan,” the document states.
The bank executive, who is unnamed in the filing, “expressed interest in working on the Trump campaign, told [Manafort] about his interest, and eventually secured a position advising the Trump campaign,” according to the court document.
The executive “expressed an interest in serving in the administration of President Trump, but did not secure such a position,” the filing reads.
The development marks the first sign that Manafort’s role as Trump campaign chairman will be mentioned in this month’s trial.
Manafort’s lawyers had previously requested that any mention of Trump be kept out of the trial, over concerns that it could influence jurors who already have a strong opinion of the president.
Mueller’s team wrote in the filing that they do not “intend to present at trial evidence or argument concerning collusion with the Russian government and, accordingly, does not oppose the defendant’s motion in that respect.”
The prosecutors also pushed back against Manafort’s attorneys’ claims that mentioning the Trump campaign in the trial could prejudice jurors. The special counsel wrote that Manafort’s attorneys did “not articulate how ‘strong views’ about the President are prejudicial to him or would impact how a juror would view the defendant’s prior work on the campaign.”
Manafort has pleaded not guilty to charges of bank fraud, money laundering and failing to register as a foreign agent with the Justice Department for his work as a lobbyist for pro-Russia political parties in Ukraine ahead of the 2016 presidential election.
He was ordered to jail last month after Mueller alleged that he attempted to tamper with a witness.